Mushroom Farm Opens in Kaluga Region

The official opening ceremony of the Verniy Put’ LLC mushroom farm was held in Kudriavets village of Hvastovichy District on September 2. The ceremony was attended by Kaluga Region’s Governor Anatoly Artamonov and the General Director of Verniy Put’ LLC Ilya Vorontsov. The event was one of national significance, as more than 90% of cultivated mushrooms consumed in Russia are imported.

The annual output of the farm is 30,000 tons of substrate and 300 tons of oyster mushrooms. The project was launched in 2008. Over a six-year period, the company’s management built and reconstructed over 4,000 square meters of production facilities. 100 new jobs were created. The complex is considered unique and does not have any analogues in territory of the former Soviet Union. It is currently capable of producing up to 45 tons of substrate per day, which can be used to grow up to 14 tons of oyster mushrooms.

Ilya Vorontsov, General Director of Verniy Put’ LLC, explains: “We have increased our production capacity 12-fold. We have switched to a new efficient technology for substrate production that is in many ways better than European technologies. It excludes contamination with competitive microflora, thus improving the yield. The region currently imports more than 90% of mushrooms, but we are now prepared to create the conditions that will allow us to grow sufficient volumes of mushrooms within Russia”.

The first shipments of Kaluga-produced substrate were already sent to mushroom farms in Moscow, Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod and Tula Regions. Agreements were signed with Kazan and Vladimir Region. The company’s plans include production of substrates for other types of mushrooms. At full capacity, output will reach 1 ton of mushrooms per day. Ilya Vorontsov also said that the company is currently completing the installation of chambers for growing of exotic mushrooms.